Which book distribution company should you use if you want to distribute your books to as many retailers as possible?
Not only do you want to distribute your ebooks widely. But you also want to use the same service to distribute your print books and audiobooks.
Back then, Draft2Digital was a no-brainer choice.
You don’t have to pay anything upfront, but you will have to pay the distribution fee when you make sales.
Even with such an arrangement, many of us seem fine with it since you will only have to pay when you make sales.
Going wide doesn’t feel risky when you don’t have to pay anything when you don’t make any sales at all.
But now?
You will have to pay $12 annually if your net royalty throughout the year is less than $100.
And if you’re a new user?
Well, you will have to shell out $20 for the one-time activation fee.
Yes, it still beats having to pay a monthly or annual subscription if you intend to use PublishDrive for the same purpose.
But putting it from another perspective, PublishDrive may have been the best option long-term, even with the recurring monthly or annual fee.
What is PublishDrive?
For the longest time, PublishDrive was known as just another book distribution company, just like Draft2Digital.
But PublishDrive is now more than just an aggregator to distribute your books to other retailers worldwide.
Do you co-write a book with someone, publish anthologies with other authors, or collaborate with other creators to publish a book?
Back then, you would have to do all that manually with spreadsheets.
But now?
You can do all that easily with PublishDrive’s service, Abacus.
With Abacus, you can split and automate the royalty payments with whoever you’re working with.
So no more having to do the manual tracking and issuing the payments yourself.
And if you’re someone who struggles with optimizing your book’s metadata?
PublishDrive’s AI publishing assistant is there to help you with just that.
And if you need help with the book cover design, it can do that for you, too.
Of course, you can use the book cover design to convey your book cover idea to a human cover designer.
As much as I’m a big proponent of AI, I still think some things are better off with a human touch.
Whether you need help with distributing your books to a wider audience, managing royalty payments for other authors, or metadata, PublishDrive has you covered.
What makes this book distribution company worth considering?
Not going to lie, it’s not fun having to pay a monthly or subscription fee just to get your books distributed to a wider audience.
If anything, the $12 annual fee that you have to pay to Draft2Digital seems rather cheap compared to what you have to pay to PublishDrive.
But here’s the cool part about PublishDrive – they don’t take any revenue share, even in their free plan.
Of course, you can only upload one book and distribute to three stores with the free plan.
Even with such a limitation, it still doesn’t look like a bad deal, considering that most of us just want to distribute books to Barnes and Noble, Kobo, and Apple Books.
Whether you make $1 or 6 figures from your book sales, you get full royalty payments after retailers get their cut.
Sure, 10% distributor fees that Draft2Digital charges aren’t a lot by any means.
But when you generate this many sales for multiple formats, that 10% distributor fee will certainly cost you a lot more than what you have to pay to PublishDrive.
If you generate this many sales, then you may as well opt for PublishDrive’s subscription plan, right?
What you should know about PublishDrive
Say you decide to upgrade to any of their paid plans so that you can distribute to more retailers.
Yes, we all want our books to be available at as many places as possible.
And it’s even more so when the paid plan allows you to distribute ebooks, paperbacks, and audiobooks to more than 50 stores and 100,000 libraries in more than 100 countries.
But here’s the truth about all these sales channels – you may not be able to distribute your books to all of them.
For one, the ISBN.
If you don’t have one, then your books may not be available in stores that require one.
The same goes for print books as well.
You can’t use PublishDrive to distribute your print books if they have no ISBN.
And what if your book is only available in English?
That’s unfortunate for you, too, since a handful of retailers will only accept books in a specific language.
While some regional retailers such as Tolino do accept English books, a handful of them won’t accept books that are in English.
Even some of them will only accept nonfiction or books in specific genres.
As much as it’s amazing to have more options to distribute your books, you can’t list them all.
Does it mean it’s pointless to have the option to distribute to 50 stores worldwide?
Of course, the answer is no.
If anything, it’s an amazing feat to be able to do just that as an indie author.
Who should sign up with PublishDrive?
If you already make a lot of sales going wide in multiple formats, then signing up with PublishDrive is a no-brainer for you.
After all, the math says it all – the subscription fee will cost you a lot less than the revenue share when you generate this many sales.
Depending on how big your backlist is, you will have to opt for their highest tier if you have 48 books.
But the good news is that they do offer a custom plan if you have more than 50 books.
Heck, you even get your own customer success manager if you publish more than 50 books through PublishDrive.
Does it mean PublishDrive is off-limits if you’re a brand new author and you don’t make that many sales on other retailers?
Of course, the answer is no.
You can opt for the free plan to test the waters.
Or you can opt for their Starter Plan if you want more access to other stores and other cool things such as sales analytics and marketing and promo tools.
Interested in giving PublishDrive a try?
You can sign up with any of your preferred plans right here:
Will I be upgrading to any of PublishDrive’s paid plans?
The answer is yes.
As much as I’m not much of a fan of subscriptions, I have to admit that the subscription fee will cost me a lot less than the revenue share.
Of course, I won’t be upgrading to the paid plan right away since their old free plan works fine for me in my current situation.
If I upgrade to any of their paid plan, you can bet that you’ll know about it through this blog.
And if you’re wondering about my reason for switching to PublishDrive, you can read more about it right here.